Aberdeen University Forestry Society (Est. 1919)

The Aberdeen University Forestry Society was founded in 1919 and is one of the oldest student and alumni societies in the University. The Society arranges a variety of events, but the highlight of the year is the Forestry Society Annual Dinner usually held around the end of February. Established in 1945, this traditional dinner regularly sees attendances of around 100 of which about three-quarters are graduates. The dinner is a great opportunity to meet old classmates, catch up with what everyone is doing, and to reminisce about student days. It is also an opportunity for the students to meet the graduates, and many undergraduates are assisted on the path of a career in the forestry industry.

Several of the private forestry companies sponsor tables, which helps to support the event financially and to provide the students with subsidised tickets. The graduates donate prizes for a raffle that raises several hundred pounds; the money used to support student field trips. In the afternoon of the dinner, the Annual Borthwick-Steven Lecture—named after the first two professors of forestry at Aberdeen—is held where an invited speaker lectures on a topical subject. Many graduates are given time off work and expenses to attend the lecture, and of course this facilitates attendance at the reunion dinner in the evening. The lecture is held on campus and provides an opportunity for graduates to visit not only familiar places, but also to see the fascinating changes such as the new library.

If you are a forestry graduate and have lost touch with the Society and alumni, please contact the honorary president of the Aberdeen University Forestry Society, Dr Andrew Cameron (a.d.cameron@abdn.ac.uk), who will make sure that you are on the invitation list for the annual dinner and receive a copy of the Forestry Society Alumni Newsletter.

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